d florins,
and these claimed by the Empress Dowager; her army, exclusive of the
troops in Italy and the Low Countries, did not amount to thirty thousand
effective men; a scarcity of provisions and great discontent existed in
the capital; rumors were circulated that the government was dissolved,
that the Elector of Brunswick was hourly expected to take possession of
the Austrian territories; apprehensions were entertained of the distant
provinces--that the Hungarians, supported by the Turks, might revive the
elective monarchy; different claimants on the Austrian succession were
expected to arise; besides, the Elector of Bavaria, the Elector of
Cologne, and the Elector Palatine were evidently hostile; the ministers
themselves, while the Queen was herself without experience or knowledge
of business, were timorous, desponding, irresolute, or worn out with
age. To these ministers, says Mr. Robinson, in his despatches to the
English court, "the Turks seemed already in Hungary, the Hungarians
themselves in arms, the Saxons in Bohemia, the Bavarians at the gates of
Vienna, and France the soul of the whole." The Elector of Bavaria,
indeed, did not conceal his claims to the kingdom of Bohemia and the
Austrian dominions; and, finally, while the Queen had scarcely taken
possession of her throne, a new claimant appeared in the person of
Frederick of Prussia, who acted with "such consummate address and
secrecy"--as it is called by the historian--that is, with such
unprincipled hypocrisy and cunning, that his designs were scarcely even
suspected when his troops entered the Austrian dominions.

Silesia was the province which he resolved, in the present helpless
situation of the young Queen, to wrest from the house of Austria. He
revived some antiquated claims on parts of that duchy. The ancestors of
Maria Theresa had not behaved handsomely to the ancestors of Frederick,
and the young Queen was now to become a lesson to all princes and states
of the real wisdom that always belongs to the honorable and scrupulous
performance of all public engagements. Little or nothing, however, can
be urged in favor of Frederick. Prescription must be allowed at length
to justify possession in cases not very flagrant. The world cannot be
perpetually disturbed by the squabbles and collisions of its rulers; and
the justice of his cause was, indeed, as is evident from all the
circumstances of the case, and his own writings, the last and the least
of all the